In information technology environment Reliability, Availability and Serviceability (RAS) functionality of an Operating System (OS) is one of the major customer requirements. RAS capabilities have generally been deployed in the processor hardware, but having these features in the OS increases the value of RAS to customers.
Multiple components of the OS, such as device drivers, process management, and memory management, each have different RAS capabilities. Each RAS capability has different RAS attributes. The RAS attribute values are tuned to control the overall RAS capability of the OS. Reliability helps detect faults in components in a timely manner. Availability is the amount of time a device (or a component) actually operates as a percentage of the total time it should be operating. Serviceability takes the form of various methods of diagnosing errors in components.
Generally, First Fault Data Capture (FFDC) captures required information to diagnose a root cause in case of a system fault. In case FFDC fails to do so, the RAS attribute values associated with the system capabilities of the components can also be tuned to collect data at various strategic points in a run time environment of the OS and thus provide information to diagnose the root cause of the system fault. However, when applying RAS attribute values to the components, all existing customizations that specify applicable RAS attribute values are searched. Searching all existing customizations that specify applicable RAS attributes is inefficient and time consuming.
Therefore, a need exists for a more efficient way to search customizations specifying the applicable RAS attribute values when applying RAS attribute values to existing or new components.